All the Right Moves and All the Right Faces
by Baroness Kika
Summary: Part of the AtRF universe: Years into his sobriety and preparing for the arrival of his and Katniss's first child, Peeta Mellark receives something surprising from someone he never believed he'd hear from again. Oneshot. Originally written for the S2SL charity drive.


**Right about a year ago, I published the epilogue chapter of my story _All the Right Friends in All the Right Places. _In the year since, I've revisited that universe a few times - most recently for Stories2SaveLives, the fandom charity drive organized by Streetlightlove back in February.**

**This is one of the stories I contributed to the drive, albeit in a very different form and with an entirely new title. It felt at the time that it would be the last time I'd revisit Recovery!Peeta's world, but the end result of my submission wasn't entirely the send-off I wanted for him. It could well be that no send-off I write will ever truly feel like a good enough ending for this character that became so near and dear to my heart, but this version is a little closer.**

**Thanks, of course, go to Street for organizing and allowing me to participate in S2SL, and especially to my wonder-beta _sohypothetically _for her time and patience and love with this entry of AtRF, as with the rest of that story. It would never have been the story it was without you, So, and I love you dearly for that and everything else you do for me.**

**Without further ado, please enjoy this sort of _second_ epilogue for AtRF - and thank you, as always, for reading.**

**~Kika**

* * *

Winter in Massachusetts is a pretty terrible time to move, but Katniss likes to remind me that I was the one who started looking at housing ads after the leaves had changed. I had only intended to look, of course - I never expected to happen upon The Perfect House.

It's a far cry from the shitty little studio in Durham where I lived when Katniss and I met. Once upon a time it had been a duplex, but the people we bought it from were midway through converting it into a single family when the husband landed some promotion that moved them halfway across the country. Which is why the place is such a steal - there's still remnants of of the upstairs kitchen, and the downstairs bedroom they were converting into an open, formal dining room still has some exposed brick and pipework. Thankfully, it's nothing that Thresh says he can't help us take care of.

So it ends up that we're moving into our first grown-up, mortgaged home on one of the coldest, snowiest days of the new year. The movers we've hired have the worst of it, but Thresh, Rue, and I aren't having much fun either. And Katniss is livid that I'm not letting her lift anything heavier than a box of pillows. Somehow she doesn't buy my excuse that I'm simply following orders from her midwife.

When everything is finally off the truck and in some sort of disastrous order, I tug her out to the porch and sweep her into my arms. She squirms, but I don't let her go.

"Just let me do this one dumb thing, and then - I promise - we'll get the kitchen and bedroom unpacked before we go to bed," I tell her.

"Fine. But this macho-thing is getting annoying, Mellark," she huffs.

"Whatever you say, dear."

I step us over the threshold and, as promised, I set her down gently without quite letting her out of my arms. I sweep my lips over hers and rest my hand on the slight distention of her belly.

"Welcome home, Mama," I murmur.

She stands on her tiptoes to wrap her arms around my neck, and nuzzles under my jaw. "Mmm… I know they helped, and we owe them pizza, but let's kick Thresh and Rue out so we can break in this place properly, eh?"

I return her impish grin with gusto and spin her about to point her towards the kitchen. "Yeah, but pizza first."

* * *

We've still got a couple of boxes left and pictures to hang, but the house is starting to officially feel like our home, and it's only taken a couple of weeks. I'm unwrapping my scarf from around my neck and kicking off my snow boots by the front door with the mail tucked under my arm. The sonogram photos we had taken on Katniss's lunch break are burning a hole in my pocket, and I make a beeline over to the fridge to slide them under magnets so they're fully displayed. I'm probably grinning like a moron as I look at the tiny lettering on one that proudly proclaims, I'm a girl.

My dad would be ecstatic about a granddaughter. Five years since he's been gone, and it's still not any easier knowing that I can't call him and tell him these things. But it stings so much less now. It's progress, I suppose.

Most of our mail has the little yellow forwarding stickers affixed to the bottom, and it's mostly junk anyway. I toss the circulars straight into the recycling bin and stash the credit card offers off to the side for Katniss to take to the office to shred, until the last thing in my hand is a bright red envelope addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Peeta Mellark. Clearly, whomever sent it never got the memo that Katniss kept her name when we got married. Oddly enough, our physical house address is scrawled beneath, not the one for the apartment. There's a return address up in the corner marked Raleigh, but no name. I slide my finger under the flap to open it, and pull out a glossy, well-staged Valentine with the picture of a chubby baby asleep on his stomach, wearing a pair of fake wings and and laying next to a heart-tipped bow and arrow set. Gale and Madge had done something similar with their girls when they were born, until Katniss teased Gale so much they stopped. Seeing this amuses me, until I see the generic greeting embossed underneath.

_Wishing you love this Valentine's Day_

_-The Mellarks (Bannock, Lavinia, and baby Zeke)-_

Whatever moisture I have on my tongue turns to ash reading the names. Bannock...his girlfriend, as I knew her years and years ago, Vi...and apparently their son. Zeke. Which I can only assume is short for Ezekiel.

The edges of the portrait begin to crumple under my tightened grip. I repeat the name over and over in my head: Ezekiel. Zeke. Zeke Mellark.

My father fucking hated being called Zeke. Bannock knew that. So why the hell would he allow his girl - scratch that, apparently now wife - to nickname their son that? Dad must be spinning around in his fucking grave.

_No he isn't_, the rational part of my brain says. _Because this is his grandson. His namesake. And he'd be over-the-moon about it, just like he would be about your baby._

My and Katniss's baby has a cousin, just a few months older than she is, whom up until two minutes ago, I didn't know existed.

I don't really know how to process this. Except to want two things that I can't have anymore: a drink and a cigarette. I gave up the first to avoid ending up like Jo and Cato, and I gave up the second for the health of Katniss and our baby. Frankly, I don't even care which one I get first, I want both so badly. But my feet pin me in place in our brand new kitchen that houses neither bottles of wine in the butler's pantry built-in wine rack, nor a carton of cigarettes in the freezer.

I have no idea how long I stand there staring at the valentine, trying to decide which of my nephew's features belong to my side of the family and which belong to his mother's. I realize that he has the same chin as Bannock and I do. I can only imagine his eyes are blue, since I seem to remember Vi having either blue or green eyes, but they're closed in the shot so I can't be sure. He has an aptly cherubic smile on his face, and I swear, it's just like my dad's. Katniss actually startles me when she gets home. I drop the card on the kitchen counter, and she snatches it up before I can even process that she's there.

"I...I have a nephew, apparently," I stammer.

"Oh, Peeta…" she says softly, and moves closer to me. She fits against my side, and I press my nose and mouth into the crown of her head to breathe in her scent. The pounding of my heart lessens when I do this, and I add it to the never-ending list of things that Katniss does for me that I can't thank her enough for.

She pulls away after a moment, looking thoughtful and worrying the corner of her mouth before she speaks. She picks up the glossy photograph to study it again before she says a word, "You know… Maybe this is a good thing. Maybe this is Bannock trying to reach out to you, you know? Mend some fences? Have his little brother back…"

"Or," I say bitterly, "it could just be his way of reminding me how much of a fuck-up I am."

"Stop it. You aren't a fuck-up. Not anymore. Look at us. We're doing okay," she says tenderly.

"I need to go for a run," I say, turning on my heel and heading for the stairs. I hear her padding after me, but I'm already pulling off my scrubs from work and changing into my thermal Under Armour by the time she catches up. She sits on the edge of the bed and rubs at her side while I change. I'm too preoccupied to ask if the baby is kicking too hard, or if she just has a muscle cramp I can help rub away.

"It's almost dark and it's starting to snow again. I don't think a run is a good idea…" she says calmly.

"I'll be fine, I've done it before," I say, pulling on the bright orange fleece vest I always wear on cold runs.

"Stay here. If you want to do something physical to distract yourself, I can probably help you with that," she offers, lifting her eyebrows surreptitiously and rolling her tongue along her bottom lip. Normally a look like that would have her underneath me in about five seconds, but not today. Not when I'm this…this…

"I need to go for this run, Katniss. I'll be back in half an hour, okay?"

I peck the top of her head before jogging down the stairs and stuffing my feet into my running shoes. The cold air bites my cheeks as I close the door behind me, and only feels more and more frigid as I pump my legs underneath me and head down the block. It's maybe not the best coping method, literally running as fast and as far from my cravings as possible, but it works. And I'll always take what works when they get this bad.

* * *

Katniss gives me my space when I get back from my run, and doesn't push me to talk about the valentine or anything having to do with Bannock. We make a simple dinner together in relative silence. After we eat, she pulls out her work laptop to get caught up on a couple of things, and I scrub the dishes and counter tops until they're gleaming. I'm tempted to bake something, just to keep my hands busy and mind anywhere except where it's trying to drift, but we're short on butter and eggs and I'm not leaving the house again because of how heavily the snow is coming down. Katniss has the news on in the living room when her cell phone rings, and I'm pretty sure I overhear her talking to her boss, Boggs, about her working from home tomorrow instead of going in. I won't know if the clinic will cancel appointments until first thing, so under the assumption that I'll still be working, I kiss her goodnight and go up to bed. I pop a couple of Valerian tablets, hoping they'll be enough to calm my racing mind so I can actually sleep, but I'm wide awake when she comes up to bed a couple of hours later.

She knows, clearly, from the way she tucks her arm around me and presses her lips to the corner of my jaw over and over again. I don't mean to flinch in her arms like I do, but the action is involuntary, and she responds by reaching over me to snap on the lamp. I rub my eyes, annoyed, and despite all efforts to force me to roll over and face her, I bury my face in my pillow to block her out.

"Talk to me," she demands. "I've let you sulk all night, even after you claimed your run cleared your head, but I can tell this is still bothering you."

"It's really not," I lie. "I just can't sleep."

"Bullshit."

"Katniss, please just go to sleep," I beg her, and reach for the lamp before she yanks my hand back.

"_Talk to me._ Or God help me, I will drive out in the snow and pick Thresh up, or call Madge and make you talk to one of them. Take your pick," she says sternly. It's amazing how fast after becoming pregnant she learned to adopt her 'mom voice'.

But while my wife may be stubborn, I'm cranky and want to avoid thinking about my brother as long as humanly possible. I weasel my way out of her arms and sit up at the end of the bed, folding my arms across my chest and return the scowl she shoots at me.

"It's a shitty feeling, alright?" I spit out. "The last time I sent him anything, he scribbled _Return to Sender_ on it and then sent me an email detailing all the times something I did while I was fucked up made him hate me. Then he says, 'Don't bother ever getting in touch, because I don't want you to be my brother anymore'. And that sucked, and you know what happened next. But now he has a perfect kid that he saddled with our father's name, and he can't fucking wait to rub it in my face? Fuck him."

Katniss huffs. "Maybe it wasn't him. Maybe it was this Lavinia woman he married. Did you think of that?"

I lick my teeth. "How did they get our new address? There wasn't a forwarding label on it, and even if there were, how would they have had an address for us period? Best Ban knows, I OD'd and died in a ditch somewhere outside of Durham, just like Cato did."

If looks could kill, Katniss's would send me six feet under without so much as a shovel. "Don't you _ever_ be flippant about that."

"How did he - she - whichever of them sent that get our address?" I sneer. "I'm willing to bet dollars-to-fucking-donuts that Mom gave it to them. Which means that Bannock is finally talking to our mother again…"

"Why is that not a good thing, Peeta?!" Katniss snaps. "You and your mom have wanted to get Bannock and Rye to forgive you both for years!"

My voice doesn't even register as my own when I scream back at her, "Because if he was going to forgive one of us first, why the hell wasn't it me?!"

Katniss stares at me in stunned silence, and I swallow back a sob that threatens to burst out of my chest. I don't want to repeat the words in my head like I do, but there they are - in some noble effort to rebuild burned bridges, Bannock chose to forgive our mother before he forgave me. And despite my own forgiveness of Mom years and years earlier, this cuts deep. In the heyday of her addiction, she was cold at best and abusive at worst. I was just a drunken moron. So how much does my brother really hate me that he'd forgive her before he forgave me?

"Baby, you don't know that your mom…"

"I'm going to go sleep on the couch," I say, cutting Katniss off before she has a chance to press it further. I grab my pillow and one of the decorative throws from the end of the bed before I tromp down the stairs, impervious to her calling after me to wait, to keep talking to her. I know that if I keep talking, I'll end up admitting just how close I was to ducking into a liquor store a couple of times on my run earlier, and how my hands are still shaking from being deprived of the thing I want above all else.

I thought it'd be easier after a half-decade sober. The truth is, it sucks every bit as much as it did five days after my relapse.

I spread out on the couch and look up at the ceiling, knowing full well that I'm staring at the floor of my bedroom. The floorboards don't creak, so Katniss must still be in bed. I cross my arms and clench my eyes closed, willing sleep to come to me. All I see are the words of Bannock's email, the one that set me off on the Dark Day, telling me to never contact him again.

_A day may come when we forgive you, but we'll never forget what you did. We'll never trust you again._

I press the heel of my palms into my eyes to try to rub out the words, but they swirl there, looping in shiny circles over and over again. I wonder just how much my pillow would muffle the noise if I let out the scream that bubbles up in my chest.

I can't lay still like this, I just can't. I push the blanket off my chest and pad into the kitchen. A chill runs up and down my spine from being bare-footed and bare-chested. I flip on the light underneath the cupboards and pick up the kettle on the stove to fill it with water. Tea isn't what I want, because it's not gin and it's not nicotine, but I remind myself again and again - I can't have what I really want.

After I turn on the flame under the kettle, I lean over the sink and grip the shiny chrome until my knuckles turn white. I try to breathe normally, but it's too hard when cravings get this bad. And this is about as terrible as I've had in weeks. Months. Fuck, years maybe.

She sneaks up on me, just like she always does. Her arms wrap around my torso, and my spine goes rigid in surprise. Her short fingernails trail along my ribs and my stomach and come to rest just above my pajama pants. I can feel her breasts and belly press against my back through the thin cotton of her t-shirt; her breath is hot on my shoulder blades in between the light kisses she peppers there.

"Don't shut me out like this, Peeta. We're a team, remember? Tell me what's wrong," she murmurs. I can feel myself melt against her, and the craving slowly begins to wane.

"I'm not worthy of them. I know that. But they're still my brothers. And I'd be lying to you if I said that I haven't missed them every single day. And I just… I don't know what to do, baby," I choke out.

"There's nothing you can do right now. Not at midnight. Come back to bed, and in the morning, we'll figure out what to do. Together."

"I can't sleep, Katniss. I'm just… My brain won't stop long enough to let me."

Her fingertips ghost over the waistband of my pants before one of her hands slips deftly underneath. My breath catches in my throat when she grabs hold of my cock with her perfect, lithe fingers, and it twitches and strains to attention.

"You can let me help you with that, too," she says, her voice a husky timbre that never fails to make me putty in her hands.

She grasps me tight at the base, her pumps slow and lazy as the fingers of her other hand slip into the waistband and tugs downward. The cotton of my pants whispers down my thighs as it clears my erection, and she begins to move her hand much more methodically. She insinuates her knee in between my thighs, and the feel of her silky skin rubbing against mine makes my cock throb and pulse in her hand. Her teeth sink delicately into my shoulder before she draws her mouth away to whisper sweet-nothings hotly into my ear. My eyelids droop as she slides her hand sinuously up and down my shaft; it's absolutely everything I can do not to buck into her hand.

"Fuck, Katniss," I groan when she trails her hand up my chest and scratches over one of my nipples. She replies by nipping at the nape of my neck, and I tell by her throaty little chuckle that she's proud of herself.

"Turn around," she whispers, releasing me. She presses herself against my chest as soon as I'm facing her, and molds her lips to mine. Her tongue slips into my mouth and it writhes against my own in much the same way her center is rocking against my erection. I grip her thigh and lift her leg up around my hip; even through her panties, I can feel the blooming dampness that's begun to seep out of her.

She's pried her lips away only a second later, finding instead the column of my throat more appealing. My head falls back and my skin prickles with every luscious sucking noise she makes against my skin. Her mouth trails further and further down, mapping my neck to my collarbones, my pecs, my stomach, until she's kneeling in front of me. She looks up at me, her smokey eyes hooded and dilated, and I watch in adoration as she wraps her hand around my cock and flicks her velvety tongue along the head. Her lips wrap around me, and nearly all at once, she sucks me entirely into her mouth and hums against me. I grunt out a solid "Fuck", my hips jut forward, and I swear I hear her giggle. It doesn't seem to matter how long we've been together or how many times she does it, she still seems to get her off almost as much as it does for me.

My fingers thread into her hair, lifting it off her shoulders and giving me something to cling to as she begins to bob her head. Words I can barely understand fall from my lips as she hollows her cheeks, and I yank involuntarily on her hair when she begins to buzz her tongue against me and move ever faster. Her hand steadies my thrusting hips so she can cup me firmly and twirl her tongue around my head like it's an ice cream cone. I can already feel myself begin to weep with what's sure to be a powerful orgasm; I tug on her hair harder.

"Katniss, please…" I gasp as she plunges her mouth over me relentlessly. She takes it as me begging for my release, so her fingers and tongue move with more determination, and the slurping noises she makes grow all the more obscene.

"No, baby, I...fuck…" I grunt. I can feel heat pooling at the base of my spine already, and as much fun as tormenting her in return until she can barely stand might be, I want to be inside of her - badly.

I move quickly. My hands cup under her jaw and I yank her face away so fast, her mouth pops when my cock falls from it. I'm maybe a bit too rough as I haul her to her feet and wrench the t-shirt over her head. I spin her in place and press her back against the countertop, my fingertips probing into the waistband of her panties as I draw her earlobe into my mouth.

"You're too good," I moan into her ear as I trail my fingertips through the patch of hair between her thighs in search of her clit, "I never would have lasted."

"Maybe - _ahh_ - that was the point," she groans, shivering against me when my finger circles the bud and presses in. I wrap my arm around her waist and lift her steadily to deposit her on the countertop. I hook into her panties and tug them down, tossing them over my shoulder with no regard for where they land before I suck one of her nipples into my mouth and step between her spread thighs. I'm tugging her hips to the very edge of the counter, my fingertip still dancing across her pulsing mound when the tea kettle begins to scream behind me.

I snarl, reach back, and turn off the flame with a flick of my wrist before tugging her hips roughly and stepping between them. My cock strains upwards towards her, but the counter is just too high, and there's no way I can sheath myself inside her without some careful maneuvering. I loop my arms under her legs and cradle her knees in the crook of my arms as I pull her down so she's balancing with her arms gripping the counter and her ass off the edge. With just a tilt of my pelvis, I'm buried inside her, and we both cry out in relief at first connection. It's a delicate balance, but my upper body strength keeps her supported when I begin to slam into her, and her ankles lock behind my back so she can thrust back with equal fervor.

The under-the-cabinet light casts shadows across her abdomen as her breasts bounce with every pivot. Her skin begins to flush a delicate red, starting where we're connected and spreading up her curved belly to her chest and neck - this is how I know she's holding her breath, something she only does when I'm going too hard, too fast. I pause for a split second, watching her suck in breath after breath until I feel her almost instantly relax. When I undulate into her again, she accepts every inch of my length and clenches around me as if to keep me trapped inside of her. Her lips curl upwards and she nods imperceptibly before I pick up my rhythm. Her skin flushes deeper, but this time it's because she's screaming my name at the top of her lungs every time my skin slaps against hers.

It takes almost no time at all for me to return to the precipice, particularly not with her walls gripping me like a vice and her moans a heady, sweet vibrato in my ears. It takes a slight torquing of my wrist, but I'm able to find her clit with my thumb and work it in circles while still snapping my hips.

"God, Peeta," Katniss whimpers, her eyes fluttering closed as her head falls backwards. I long to trace the outline of her with my tongue, but I'm afraid to move and drop her. I satisfy myself with licking my lips and thrusting into her deeper and deeper still while her face contorts in any number of incredible ways. Her eyes open with a flash and are inky black in the dim light when she commands, "Come inside me."

I swear in reply, and that's all it takes for my spine to jerk erratically. My balls tighten, my toes curl, and I'm spurting into her hard and fast, all the while rubbing her clit like there's no tomorrow. Her jaw falls slack just a second later and every muscle in her body clenches as I bring her over the edge with me. I'm weak-kneed and rubbery-armed when I push her backwards on the counter top and press my face between her breasts as we pant to catch our breath.

She's drawing little figure-eights on the back of my neck when I snap back to reality. I pull away enough to look up at her, and see only patience and love in her eyes, and a sated smile on her lips. I can't help but capture them when I realize I don't know what else to say.

A few lingering, dark thoughts bloom in my brain, but Katniss's kisses and the warmth carry them away again. Somehow we make it back upstairs, and she cradles me against her chest, humming lightly as her fingers comb through my matted hair.

Whenever she hums, the baby kicks. The dulcet tone of her voice, and the gentle thump, thump of our daughter's tiny feet lull me into a reluctant but dreamless sleep.

* * *

The following morning finds us snowed in - the clinic is closed and Boggs tells Katniss not to even worry about checking her work email. There's a proper fireplace in the living room, and we set up on the couch with a fire roaring after we finally haul ourselves out of bed. Her slightly swollen feet are in my lap as she clicks about on our baby registry, searching through the items I've added and replacing them with more environmentally-friendly items. Normally as she's explaining to me - again - as patiently as she can why something made with this, that, or whatever is not something we want in our baby's nursery, I satisfy her with a simple "Yes, dear," or "Whatever you say, baby," but this time I'm honestly only half-listening. My fingertips press lightly into the muscles between the bones of her feet, and every so often, she moans a bit and wiggles her toes, not-so-subtly hinting that I can massage her feet as long as I'd like.

"If we'd found out we were having a boy," I say out of nowhere, "would you have been okay naming him 'Ezekiel'?"

She peers at me over her computer before closing it and shifting her feet in my lap. Her fingers thrum on her belly as she looks at me, her tongue moistening her lips before she finally speaks. "If you'd wanted to name the baby after your dad, we could have. But I guess I figured that'd be too hard on you."

"It probably would be," I say with a shrug, and flit my thumb across the screen of my phone. I'd drafted a long, rambly text message to Madge about the Valentine and how I'd reacted last night, but had been putting off sending it all morning, knowing full well it'd be followed by an even longer phone call from her. I press "send" and place the phone screen-side down on the coffee table while I wait for her response. "I don't know how Ban can do it. Write his name, say it on a regular basis. Even if it is in the form of that dumb nickname."

"He has his reasons, I'm sure. And maybe the reason for the nickname is because it hurts him just as much to say his full name," Katniss says, reaching for my hand. "Here...she's moving around again. I swear, I'm never gonna get another decent night's sleep until she's out of me."

I grin. "You think either of us are gonna get any sleep once she's crying all night long?"

"Oh, did I forget to tell you that you're on night duty? I decided that as soon as the stick turned blue," she says with a wink. She brushes the back of my hand with her thumb and nods at me, knowing there's still more on my mind.

"I know what I did was fucked up. And I deserved them both hating me…"

"You deserved them being angry with you… But I'm still not convinced that you deserved them hating you. So can you maybe stop thinking that?" she interrupts.

I nod, caressing her belly reverently while sifting through my thoughts to put them in the right order. "I just… I don't know what I'll say to them. I don't know if I still have to apologize, or if we can just pick back up where we left off and pretend like five years of radio-silence didn't happen."

"Well, the first thing you do is acknowledge you got the card. There's a return address, right?"

"Yeah."

"So write him back. Or send him something. One of our wedding pictures, maybe? Hell, take a picture of your five-year chip. He can't accuse you of not trying hard enough after five years sober."

The corners of my mouth pick up and I jump up to stride into the kitchen. It takes me a minute to decide which of the ultrasound pictures of my daughter I'm most willing to part with and pull it off the fridge, but when I do, I stuff it into an envelope followed by one of my business cards. It isn't much, I realize… I should draft a long letter of apology, and one day, I'm sure I will. But before I've even realized it, I've sealed the envelope closed. I have to ask Katniss where the stamps ended up.

I stare at the envelope for a minute, almost like I'm convinced it's going to sprout wings or something, until Katniss slips it from my hands and pads towards the front door. Our little mailbox is posted just beside our front door, so she doesn't even have to step onto the porch to pop it into the outgoing slot before joining me back on the couch. She notices my hands shaking, and takes them in her chilly ones before pressing them back on her belly and lolling her head on my shoulder.

"I think it's a good beginning," she tells me quietly.

My breathing evens out as I nod. Madge's ringtone pierces the room a second later, and she settles back against the arm of the couch so I can get up and talk to my best friend in semi-privacy.

It's an hour on the phone with Madge, but right before we hang up when she asks me the still-familiar question, I'm able to smile and say with certainty, "Just a one, Madge… I promise."

* * *

My fingertips drum idly on the gear shift as we idle in the parking lot at Logan, waiting for an F150 to realize there's no way he can fit into a "compact spot" and still be able to open his doors. Katniss reaches over and wraps her fingers around mine. A gentle squeeze and a smile from her, and I feel a little bit of calm wash over me.

We help ourselves to the spot once the truck drives off and I round the side of the car to help her out. She scowls at me, the gesture irritating her despite its necessity - at now eight months pregnant, she's very reluctantly realized that getting up from sitting is easier with a hand to grasp. She closes the door behind her and slips her arm in the crook of my elbow as we walk towards the terminal. We have to pause past the entryway so I can pop a piece of nicotine gum out of its wrapper and chomp down on it, letting it tingle against my cheek.

"It's going to be okay, you know," she says for about the twelfth time today.

"I know it," I say, but my voice crackles around the edges. All the gum, patches, and soothing words from my wife pale in comparison to the crushing anxiety I feel about not being able to smoke or drink my way through today.

"Think of how happy today would make your dad. He'd be so proud of you both, I know it."

Katniss only pulls out the father trump-card when she knows I really need to focus on something other than whatever is on my mind. She knows it works.

"You're right," I say, because it's all I can manage. We press on to the greeting area, and find her an empty seat to take the pressure off her swollen ankles. I bounce from foot to foot, gnashing the gum between my teeth, and try not to look at the clock on my phone every ten seconds.

Katniss grunts strangely, and I kneel in front of her. She's rubbing a spot on her ribcage and breathes slowly through her nose until she's no longer grimacing. Our little girl has only gotten more and more active the closer it gets to her coming into the world. This is actually what calms me best as we continue to wait: thinking of our baby's impending arrival.

There's another wave of arrivals, and something in my gut tells me this is the one we've been waiting for. I foolishly think maybe I should brace myself, but there really is no bracing for this moment. Not when I still don't know exactly how it's gonna play out, and my heart is palpitating at the mere thought.

I see the shock of red hair that belongs to Lavinia. I barely remember her, but I do remember the intense brightness of her hair. It's long and hanging loose around her shoulders. It's a further second to notice a lock of it tangled in a chubby fist of the baby on her hip.

Then I see him - a good six inches taller than his wife, with the same messy blonde curls as my own, the same stubborn jaw and chin, and, surprisingly, a thin pair of glasses that make me think of my - our - father.

"Go on," Katniss says, poking me in the side. "Go say hi."

I must look like I'm about to object, maybe bolt for the car instead, because she hoists herself out of her chair with great difficulty, presses her palms against my cheeks, and kisses me firmly.

"I'm right here," she says. "I'm not going anywhere."

She pushes me away, and it seems like the only place I can go is forward, towards the small family that is now walking with determination towards us. When we're about two feet from one another, he and I pause suddenly, frozen in place and staring at one another.

He smiles. "Hey there, Peet."

There aren't really words to describe how strange it is to hear someone's voice after five years. Exchanging emails and text messages don't prepare you for a bizarre mix of stilted and genuine emotion. In arranging this trip, I spoke a few times to Lavinia, but never Ban. It's weird - he sounds exactly the same. But totally different.

"Hey, Ban," I reply.

We stand there because we clearly don't know what to do next. A hug seems too personal, like something brothers do when they haven't just seen one another for the first time in half a decade. A handshake is far too formal; we aren't strangers, even if it feels like I'm looking at one.

I wish our dad was here. He'd know what to tell us to do.

"Peeta, oh my gosh! Look at you!" Lavinia's voice is warm and honey-coated. Without any further pretext, she steps between us and throws her free arm around me.

"H-Hi, Vi…" I say. I'm still staring over her shoulder at Ban, who has slunk backwards a step.

"Give him a second," she whispers into my ear quickly. I almost miss it for how quickly she pulls back and says, "I saw how fit you looked in the wedding pictures you emailed but I can hardly believe it! You look fantastic!"

"Thanks. You guys look…"

I cut myself off when I notice my nephew - Zeke, I try to remember to think of him as - staring at me.

"Little Z has been really excited to meet his uncle!" Vi exclaims, untangling his fingers from her hair and waving his tiny hand at me. "Say hi to Uncle Peeta, Zeke!"

It doesn't sound as strange as I thought it would. But I still like Ezekiel better. I wave back - I'd like to reach out to hold him, but I feel like I ought to wait to be invited.

This is such a mess, I think. Maybe this was all a huge fucking mistake.

"You really do look good, Peet. And it's… It's really good to see you." Ban's voice is lower now, and he sort of sidesteps Vi a touch to move closer. And then, out of nowhere, he reaches an arm out and wraps it around my shoulders.

I realize it's the first time we've hugged since the morning we buried our father. I fold my arms up and around his back and without really meaning to, sort of sink against him. His arm tightens a touch and he does the same.

Maybe this wasn't such a mistake after all.

"Oh, you must be Katniss!" Vi titters after a moment, and Ban and I both clear our throats as we pull away from one another. His gaze is trained on the floor, and I have to quickly brush my fingertips under my eyes before wrapping my arm around Katniss to introduce her properly.

My sister-in-law coos over Katniss's belly and hugs her exuberantly. And perhaps it's just that these women know both Ban and me, but they do an incredible job at keeping the tension that thrums between us from really reaching a head again.

Which would be all-too-easy with the way Ban keeps staring at me. You'd think I was venomous or had three heads. I suppose that's understandable enough - he was saddled with our mother for years before I even came along. He saw me go down the same dark path she did. To someone without an addiction, addicts can certainly seem...well, exactly that way.

All the same, I'd be lying if I said I don't sort of wish he'd just stop. It almost feels like that hug didn't even happen when he does.

* * *

The girls can't play interference forever.

As soon as we make it back to our house, Katniss stretches out on the couch with her feet propped up and her work laptop balanced precariously on her belly. Despite Boggs telling her he'll be terminating her remote access to their company's servers any day now in an attempt to get her to actually rest up for the baby, she insists on logging in every day until her water breaks. Lavinia had offered to help me take care of dinner, but as soon as we'd walked in, Zeke - little Ezekiel seems too much of a mouthful for something so tiny - begins screaming for his own supper, and she has to excuse herself to nurse him. But, to his credit, Ban always did have an affable way of diffusing a situation fraught with tension, just like Dad did.

He nudges me in the ribs and says, "Good thing we're the kitchen lackies of the families anyway, right?"

Good thing is right, but it doesn't stop one from being able to cut the lingering… Well, everything with a fucking chainsaw as soon as we step into the kitchen. Three months of amiable text messages apparently only go so far.

"We, ah, canned up the last of our vegetable share from our CSA for the winter, so I figured veggie lasagna?" I say, opening the pantry and pulling out several jars of stewed tomatoes.

"Yeah, alright," he replies and rolls up his sleeves. I realize he isn't even bothering to ask where we keep things like flour and yeast; he finds it all as if it has its own homing signal.

"Actually, I prepped a loaf earlier," I say, pointing to the fridge. "Dad's French, actually."

"Right," he says, a little dejected. "That works. What, er, would you like me to do?"

"Sauce?"

"Sure."

I set about draining jars of roasted squash and eggplant while he deftly dices up an onion and garlic. We're completely silent other than the sizzling of the pan. I'm moving around him to put the large pot of pasta water on to boil when he asks me if we happen to have an open bottle of wine for the sauce.

He actually stutters over the words - like he's somehow forgotten everything.

I, however, don't hesitate to make the joke that if we did, it'd be empty and in the recycling bin. I shouldn't be surprised that it falls completely, utterly flat.

"She does the same thing," Ban says, his voice heavy and serious. "Mom. She makes jokes about this that… They aren't really funny."

"To you, no, I can't imagine they would be," I say quietly, trying my best to not get defensive. "It's just that when you're used to being the sort of person everyone ridicules, eventually you just… You do it to yourself to soften the blow."

"That sounds exhausting," he says.

"Yeah. It is."

"I guess we can't dart around it forever," he sighs. "At some point we're gonna have to, you know, talk about all _that_ stuff."

"Yeah," I agree.

_That_ stuff.

* * *

"You're not asleep, are you?"

Katniss's voice startles me, because I honestly figured she was already fast asleep. We've been in bed for two hours already. I've been careful to lay still enough to not keep her awake - the baby does that plenty as is.

The mattress shifts as she rolls over towards me, and our hands find one another's in the dark. Knowing how immediately comforting I find it, she places my right palm flat on her belly. The baby is surprisingly still for the time being. I wonder what it might have been that woke her up if it wasn't our girl kicking her in the ribs.

"I didn't mean to wake you if I did," I say.

"No, you didn't. I had… Anyway, I'm awake now. Talk to me?"

I sigh heavily and squeeze my eyes shut. "I didn't think it'd be this hard."

"Yes you did. That's why you haven't been sleeping almost at all this week. You do an admirable job of not tossing and turning, but you also tend to mutter when you think I'm asleep. Did you know that?"

"I do?"

"Mmhmm."

The little hint of levity makes me chuckle, and I pull her in closer. My fingers tangle in her hair and, even in the darkness, I can see her smile at me in return.

"There's a lot of things I have to make sure I say to him that I never had to worry about saying to you or Madge. Hell, not even Finnick and Annie really saw me at my worst, because I was usually alright at staying sober for work. Ban, though… He's definitely seen my worst."

"And now he's seeing you at your best. Why else would he be here if he didn't want to put the past behind you both and start from scratch? He did it with your mom, and there's a whole lot more bad blood there than there is between you two."

I'm honestly not sure if that's the case, given how much closer Bannock and Rye always were over Bannock and me. And we haven't really discussed our other brother, not even in a passing text message, but I get the hint that Rye isn't exactly thrilled that Bannock is back in contact with me and our mother. Not that I really blame him.

"What's it gonna take for you to turn your brain off, you suppose?" she asks me as she kisses the tip of my nose.

"I'll be fine. Go to sleep, honey."

She scrunches up her face and shakes her head. "Not as easy as you'd think. Seriously, what do you need?"

I'm almost ready to make a crass joke when I feel her knuckles ghost down my chest. I quirk an eyebrow at her, but my complaint - in as much as I'd ever complain about her hand slipping into my pajama pants - gets lost when she scoots ever closer and kisses me firmly.

"Guests in the house, Katniss," I gasp as I feel myself twitch erect within the loop of her fingers.

"I think we ought to learn to be quiet about things, don't you?" Her mouth finds the crook of my jaw and her teeth nip softly at my pulse point.

"I'm going to miss these pregnancy hormones of yours, you know," I tell her with a grunt, then drag my palm across her chest to lift her shirt up and over her breasts. She wiggles to help me help her out of it, and giggles softly as I sit up on my knees to grab hold of her panties. "They make you absolutely insatiable."

"Enjoy them now, husband. Once this baby comes out, your nights belong to her, not me."

"Mmm... Valid point. That doesn't seem entirely fair to you, now does it?"

"If it means I can sleep? I'll allow it."

I lift her up to sitting and lean her against her.

"I think you're pretty damn lucky that I'm such a nice guy these days," I smirk.

"Am I?"

"Oh, you definitely are."

I slither down onto my belly in front of her and nuzzle the inside of her spread thighs. She gasps quietly, and bites her lip as she looks down at me. I wink at her, and nip softly at a patch of her skin.

"Prove it," she sighs, nudging herself down so her center is that much closer to my face.

"Gladly."

I slip my arm under one of her thighs and rock her hips enough to burrow my nose into her folds. There's a slight dampness spreading against my skin as I trail up her slit with my mouth, kissing her softly over and over again. Her thigh muscles clench against my biceps and she shudders softly when my tongue darts out and follows the same trail. Slower this time. And much more deliberate.

She tries so hard to be silent. My tongue lathes over her clit and down to her opening, twirling in and out to spread her arousal all over my taste buds. She sneaks a hand down and grasps me by the hair at the base of my neck, keeping my bobbing head exactly on her clit.

"Don't stop," she breathes. I'd tell her I have no intention to - but it's easier to simply suck the little bud in between my lips and listen to her struggle to keep quiet as I whorl my tongue around it over and over again. "Please don't stop, Peeta."

I slip my fingers up to push aside the hood of her clit so only the tiny kernel is available to me. She bucks her hips against my face, having to grasp a pillow from my side of the bed to bury her face into when she finally can't keep quiet a moment longer. I will her over the edge with a quickening flick of my tongue, moaning only as loud as I need to in order to vibrate against her.

She yanks sharply on my hair when I don't stop right away after her thighs clench against my ears and her body quakes. She pants and shakes her head at me while I slowly crawl up to claim her mouth, and sweeps her tongue against mine with a whine deep in her throat.

"You're mean," she pouts at me while I wiggle out of my pajama pants.

"You're the one who can't be quiet," I grin.

She scowls playfully and pulls me down on top of her - with her belly between us, I have to brace myself much differently to kiss her. I pivot off to her side and cup her face to turn it towards me. She mewls softly into my mouth when I tuck my hand under her thigh and slowly turn her away from me, the lock of our lips breaking when she's turned fully onto her left side. She juts her ass back towards me expectantly, groaning when I take my time sliding my palms along her side from knee to waist. I pepper her shoulder with kisses and nuzzle the space under her nape; it's dappled with just a little bit of sweet moisture and I blow on it softly, prompting her to whine again.

"You're trying to make me loud, aren't you?" she keens.

I respond by draping her thigh over my hips and plunging into her. It's a struggle for both of us to be quiet, and we whimper together as I slowly rock myself into her. I seal my lips around hers, effectively muffling the incredible noises she makes that I return in kind. We press our foreheads together when I begin to thrust in earnest, and our fingers twine over her stomach and brace it. There are few things more lovely that Katniss does than the way her cheeks and neck begin to flush when we're making love, and though I can't see it in the darkness, the hand I have cupped under her jaw feels the way her skin softly burns.

She murmurs something that could be profanity or my name against my lips, which spurs me to snap into her with abandon. Her grunt of surprise is so lovely I do it again in hopes of coaxing the same noise out of her. She wrenches her mouth from mine and bites her lip, trying so hard to stay quiet and not quite succeeding. She straightens her neck and buries her lips against my wrist, kisses my palm, and lets me clamp over it gently so she can gurgle and sigh from deep within her throat, but still refrain from alerting our guests down the hall. That is, if the sound of our skin slapping together isn't enough to do that all on its own.

"Oh _God_ Katniss," I groan, and press my forehead against her temple. My fingers clamp tightly around hers on her belly and I feel myself quickly losing control, my cock and my hips the only things doing any thinking for me. She nods her head, nips at my palm, and shoves herself backwards. My head spins at how incredibly deep inside her I am, how luscious and velvety she feels as she clamps around me, and before I even realize it, I'm spilling inside her with a jerk and a throaty moan against the crook of her neck.

I can feel her breathe deeply as I come back down, and she wiggles against me as though to nestle herself further into my arms. I kiss behind her ear, then along her jaw, her cheek, and finally her mouth. I barely stop when I whisper that I love her; her smile is broad and sweet enough that it's fully visible in the darkness of our room.

Where our fingers are knitted together, I feel some sort of motion - not quite a kick - under my palm, and Katniss groans softly in response.

"If she wasn't awake before, she is now," she muses.

"Sorry," I say half-heartedly.

"No, you aren't."

She's right - I'm not, really. I cradle her against my chest and bury my face in her hair, feeling our baby move inside her, her own breathing start to level out, and when I say it again, it's more because I need to, not want to. I need her to know how much I appreciate her being on my side for so long, and for not giving up on me, ever.

"I love you, Katniss."

"Mmmm… I love you, too, Peeta."

* * *

"Holy fuck, that's cold!"

While I granted haven't known her long, it strikes me as odd how profusely sweet Lavinia is capable of swearing when she's in pain. And it doesn't take much imagination looking at her swollen, plum-colored ankle to tell that she is in a lot of pain. I can only imagine what she must have sounded like before her epidural with Zeke.

I pick up the bag of frozen peas off her ankle and drape a paper towel between the baggie and her skin. "Sorry. Our deep-freeze is pretty much subarctic. And I'd happily massage it for you, but the edema has got to go down first before it'd be even tolerable for me try it."

Out of the corner of my eye, I swear I see Bannock flinch as though the strained ankle is his own. I wonder if he's suddenly squeamish over things like this when a realization much more basic washes over me.

_Yeah. I'd probably be hesitant about him touching Katniss's _anything_ if he were the one who'd fucked our other brother's girlfriend._

I prop another pillow under her ankle and step away from her as quickly as I can. His shoulders relax a little as he takes over my perch on the coffee table, and rubs his palm gently and affectionately down her calf.

_Loud and clear, Ban. Stay away from your girl. Got it._

Katniss waddles in from the other room and slips her arm around my waist. "How you doing, Vi?"

"Terrific. My ankle hasn't been this swollen since I was the one eight and half months along."

"Well, I guess I'll have some company here on the couch, then," Katniss says.

"Oh… We don't need to go anywhere until Vi is feeling better. I mean, the Freedom Trail will still be there tomorrow, right?" Ban says a little too quickly.

"You're new to Boston, Bannock. Let me to explain - the closer we get to summer, the more of a blessing a nice day like today is. Trust me, you don't want to squander a sunny, breezy day in the 70s sitting inside unless you literally can't move," Katniss says, slipping away from me to sink down on the couch next to Vi.

My mouth opens and closes as if to protest, but I know Katniss is right. What I don't know is how much Ban will take the advice to heart.

"I'm sure a few hours off my feet with this bloody freezing baggie on will patch me right up, honey," Vi says to Ban sweetly. "You two should go!"

To his credit, my brother's eyes only slightly look like they're about to bulge out of his head. "Er… Well, we should at least take Zeke with us, so neither of you need to worry about getting up and about to take care of him."

"Definitely," I pick up. "No problem at all."

Apparently my brother and I are each so desperate to not be alone together we'll take the company of a nine month old baby.

_Terrific_.

* * *

I regret immediately not springing for a guided tour. Katniss and I have walked the Trail enough times when our friends and my mom came for visits that I decided one was a waste of money. Even knowing Katniss would likely stay home, I figured Lavinia and the historical tidbits I'd picked up from every other guided tour I've been on would be enough to keep the tension from bubbling over for me and Ban. But now it'd look desperate to offer to pay for one (particularly since Ban is as bad as our father about refusing to let other people pay for things), so we wander from the Commons to King's Chapel in stilted silence. Every so often, Zeke squawks for attention or to be taken out of the harness he's tucked in on Ban's chest, which is about the only thing we actually find some common ground to talk about.

"Vi's anti-stroller," Ban explains. "Something about them laying down and the back of their heads getting squished or something? I don't get it. This monster is getting too big to be carried around all the time."

"The must be cut from the same cloth, because Katniss thinks they're annoying and doesn't want one, either," I reply. "Madge and Annie keep telling her she'll buckle eventually for the same reasons. Erm… Want me to…?"

He gladly deposits Zeke in my arms, who grabs at my shirt for something to put in his mouth. I still wear my recovery tokens around my neck, but I make sure his little fingers don't get purchase on the chain - the last thing I need is for my nephew to choke on my five-year chip.

"Madge… That the pretty blonde girl you palled around with in high school? Father ran for mayor that one year?"

"Yeah, that's her. She's, ah… Married to Katniss's best friend. And she was my AA sponsor back home."

Ban's eyes go wide, but I decide there's little room left to really dodge around it too much longer. If my brother wants to get to know me again, he's going to need to hear about things like AA and recovery tokens and nicotine gum, same as our wives' mutual loathing for strollers and appreciation for cloth diapers. He looks like he's admitted that to himself as well for how he fiddles with the strap of the carrier around his waist and nods.

"Five years, right? That's, erm… That's really great."

I pop the pacifier clipped to Zeke's jumper into his mouth. "I've known Katniss for longer and I wish I could say that I'd been on the wagon the entire time… But…"

"Yeah. Mom mentioned about, ah, Dad's anniversary. But she told me I had to ask you for the details myself.

I wonder if he's thinking about the email. Those letters, stamped _Return to Sender_. I wonder if he's thinking maybe it was partially his fault.

"I went on a bender that night. Woke up in the hospital the next day with a blood alcohol content high enough that it's a wonder it didn't kill me. Looking back, I'd been cooking for a while. Just didn't have my head on as straight as I thought I did, you know? It was bound to happen. I wish it hadn't happened like it did, but it was always going to."

I sigh, thinking about Cato and Jo. I remembered Finnick mentioning Jo's name had been on the news, some story about her rehabilitation after she was released from prison for good behavior, and speaking in school assemblies about not driving drunk. It was good to hear, but I'm glad I'm not in Durham anymore. I'm not sure I ever want to accidentally run into Johanna Mason again.

"Five years," Bannock says again. "That's good, though."

"Thanks."

We wander into the burial ground next to the church, and suddenly, Dad's everywhere. All I can think about is that last day before Katniss and I moved, sitting next to his headstone a blubbering mess. I always mean to take some flowers by whenever we're back in town, but something else never fails to come up. Zeke fusses and squirms for his father - I wonder if it's because I'm shaking just a little bit.

"I'd meant to tell you, um… I fished that picture out of the flower cup on Dad's grave."

My mouth goes dry. "When?"

"Years ago. It was pretty beat up, and I thought it was trash at first and was pissed, but…"

"I left it the day Katniss and I moved up here. And the chips I'd earned up until then. Were they…?"

"No, they weren't."

_Weird, _I think._ Why would the pictures be there, but my chips not-_

_Rye_, the voice in my head says, even though it's wholly unbelievable.

"I'm sorry about that email, Peeta," Ban mutters, studying the top of Zeke's head as he speaks. "I'm sorry if it had anything to do with…"

"It's all symptoms, Ban," I say confidently. "I told you - I'd been cooking a good long while. You weren't… It didn't have anything to do with you, or Dad's anniversary, or Mom changing her last name, or Katniss and Madge not being there with me. It was all symptoms and I wasn't strong enough to look beyond them."

"What about now?" Ban asks. "If Sammy runs out the door and gets hit by a car, or Katniss decides to leave you, God forbid, or you lose your job…"

It's a legitimate question, but it doesn't make answering it any easier.

"I would cope. Five years of sobriety is... I think I'm strong enough now, is what I'm saying."

"I hope you're right about that," he says, studying a weathered, chipped stone grave marker. "For your kid's sake, if nothing else."

I think he means to be genuinely concerned, and I don't think he means for it to come out as barbed as it does. But his words sting something fierce.

* * *

The weather gets blustery around the time we're crossing over towards the USS Constitution, and Zeke's long since fallen asleep against Ban's chest. We decide it's for the best to just head back, and make for the nearest T station. I'm punching in the security code for my phone to text Katniss about what she and Vi might want for an early dinner when Ban's phone rings shrilly and wakes up Zeke. He begins to wail, and Ban has to plug his ear with his other hand to actually hear who he's talking to. I try to distract my nephew best I can, but it's hard not to notice all the color drain out of my brother's face.

"Right. We'll be there soon," he says. He looks at me squarely for the first time all day, and the look on his face is more than enough to make me immediately nervous.

"That was Vi… Peeta, Katniss is…"

I don't need to hear anything else he says. I already know.

I curse for the train to move faster towards the stop where we left the car. It's only a couple of miles from there to the branch of Mass General.

* * *

Kim, the midwife Katniss had been seeing throughout her pregnancy, vehemently supports my sister-in-law's decision to not call and worry me earlier when we arrive and demand answers from Vi. She spouts out a lot of medical mumbo-jumbo and long words that frankly scare the shit out of me that I can't really process. The long and the short of it is that our baby is coming today. Right now, as a matter of fact. And not at all in the way we wanted her to.

"Katniss never wanted a c-section, you know that! She didn't even want an epidural!" I yell at Kim.

"I know that, Peeta, but sometimes things don't go according to plan. We talked about that months ago, that's why I wanted her to meet and get comfortable with Doct-"

"I need to see her. I need to be in there with her."

I could take Kim's head off for holding me back. "They've already prepped her and started, Peeta, I'm sorry. There just… It had to happen quickly, for both of their sakes. I'm going to go back there now and see if they're done - they might already be done, that's how quickly they can do a C - and then as soon as I can, I'll send you back there."

I can't decide what sort of sound of protestation to make; the one that comes out of my throat doesn't sound human. "She's already… They already took her out?"

"Maybe. I'll be right back, alright? Sit tight."

"Kim!" I call out, and pull her close. I drop my voice so Bannock and Lavinia can't hear me. "I… We made love last night. That wouldn't have…"

She pats my hand. "It might have prompted things along, maybe, but it's not the reason for all this. I'll be right back, I promise."

Kim bustles off, and Lavinia bounces Zeke nervously on her hip while Bannock rubs his jaw. They're both looking for something to say, I can tell. I'd honestly rather neither of them say a word, lest I say something nasty in reply.

"I'm so sorry, Peeta, I'm so sorry I didn't call earlier. Katniss told me not to and I should have overridden her, but…"

I don't know what else to feel, so I let myself swim in utter fury. I'm furious at Vi. I'm furious at Katniss. I'm furious at Kim and the doctor's who can't explain what's going on with my daughter and my wife and why and how this could have possibly happened so fast. None of it makes sense. When things start to blur around the edges, I head straight for the door.

I sink down onto the first empty bench I see, and gulp down as much fresh air as I can sitting near an idling ambulance as I am, my phone pressed to my ear. Thresh answers after the second ring, and as soon as he hears my voice, he knows I'm a disaster. He's in Beverly on a work site, and it'll be an hour before he can get here in traffic, but he promises to send Rue over right away.

"What was that thing Madge asked you, man?" Thresh says. "One to ten, right?"

"Don't make me answer that. You won't like the response," I snap.

"She's at one of the best hospitals in the nation, Peeta. Nothing about this feels right, I know it, but this isn't something you can't survive. I promise."

There's a thousand what-ifs running around in my head, and Thresh tries to dispel them all. He's a good friend, one of the best, but there's only so much he can do over the phone.

"Hold out for Rue, man. And pissed as you might be at them, talk to your brother until she shows up. Call Madge if you need to, or whoever else. But don't do anything dumb, alright?"

A couple of feet away, I see a guy in a pair of scrubs press a cigarette between his lips and rifle in his breast pocket for a lighter.

"Not even smoke, right?"

"That'd be dumb, but you know that's not the worst thing. Go inside. Sit down and breathe. Rue and me will be there soon… And I swear, the same sort of thing happened with our other sister a couple years back, and she and her baby were more than okay. This happens, man."

_It wasn't supposed to happen_, I think bitterly. _Not to Katniss. Not to our baby._ The rational side of my brain that's remembering the classes we took and every lecture Kim and the doctors gave us can't win out in reminding me otherwise. We were supposed to be the exception to all the rules here.

All the same, I hang up and go back inside, bypassing the guy in the scrubs without begging a smoke off him. I hope that maybe Kim is back, talking to Bannock and asking where I am. Instead, he's sitting off in a waiting chair by himself, and stands quickly when I stalk up to him.

"Where's Vi?" I ask a little too gruffly.

"She went to find someplace a little more private to try and nurse Zeke, calm him down a little. You can't be mad at her, Peet, she couldn't have-"

"How would you feel if it were her, and Katniss didn't call you, huh?"

I only realize how badly I'm shaking when Bannock's hand reaches out and grasps me behind the neck. He forces me down into the seat next to the one he'd just vacated, and hunkers down with me.

"Okay, fine, I'd be pissed, too, but that's not the point. The point is that you need to calm down, 'cause you're scaring the shit out of me. You scared the shit out of Vi, too, and my kid. What would your sponsor do if he...she...whatever… What would they do if they were here?"

"Thresh is on the way," I grumble. If this were a wrestling tournament, he'd have me in an illegal hold. "I dunno… I dunno what they'd do."

"They'd make sure you don't hightail it to a liquor store, right?"

I gulp. It hurts the back of my neck to nod.

His grip softens. His hand slides around my shoulder instead, and he pulls me into a half-hug.

"Then that's what I'll do, too," he says.

I'd expect Madge or Annie or, hell, even Thresh or Gale or Finnick, to hold onto me like this. Plant me in reality and try to calm me down. Maybe it's just because he's been a non-presence in my life for so many years that I can't exactly equate Bannock with this same sort of affection.

But I'd be lying if I said it doesn't work. My own wobbly willpower and the steadiness of his arm grounds me, and if Madge were here to ask, I'd be able to tell her the numbers ticking slowly but very surely, down her scale.

It feels like an eternity before I'm at a five; at that same moment, Kim rushes back up to us. There's still deep, concerned lines etched in her face, but she is most assuredly smiling at me.

"Five pounds, three ounces," she says, "Congratulations, Mr. Mellark. You're officially a father. Would you like to meet your daughter?"

Bannock has to answer for me when I burst into tears.

"He definitely would."

* * *

I'm nearly dozing in the chair next to Katniss's bed when I hear her whimper and stir. I move to sit on the bed near her hip, and grasp at her hand that paws at her nearly flat stomach. I press my lips into her wrist and smile at her. "It's okay, baby. You're alright. They just knocked you out for a few hours. Apparently you get a little aggro with a local anesthetic."

She gulps and tosses her head back and forth. "I don't… She's okay? She's okay, right? I only saw her for a minute and she was this weird color and…"

I smile at her. "She's okay. I promise. I saw her and… Well, she's almost perfect. She's beautiful."

It calms her a little, but not by much. "What do you mean, 'almost perfect'?"

My heart sinks, but I know it'll be better hearing it from me than the doctors. "She's in an incubator to keep her warm and get her plenty of oxygen. Since she was a little early, they're gonna need to do tests and keep an eye on her for a few days… Maybe a week…"

She puts her arms over her face, like she's trying to block out my words. I lean forward and stroke her arms, her face when she allows it, and shush her sobbing until she lowers her arms.

"It sounds worse than it is. It's all precautionary. She's really okay, I promise, baby. You'll feel better when you see her."

She takes a shaky breath and nods slowly. "It just… It wasn't supposed to happen like this. You were… Supposed to be here."

I want to still be angry with her about telling Lavinia not to call me until it was too late for me to get there on time, but I can't when she's already so upset. I kiss her forehead softly. "I'm here now. And next time we'll get it right."

This gets a laugh from her. "Next time? You _cannot_ already be thinking about a second baby when…"

"I'm teasing, Katniss. But it got you to calm down, didn't it?"

A nurse bustles in, and I have to move so she can check Katniss out and let us know the doctor who did her c-section will be in to talk to us in a bit. I take my place back at her side and kiss her palm again and again until some of the tension she's holding in her body releases. It helps me feel a little calmer, too.

"Were you okay?" she says after a moment. I don't need her to explain what she means by it.

"I didn't even try to bum a smoke," I say. "It… It was hard not knowing what was going on with you. And I was worried I'd do something stupid, sure, but… Ban was there. He calmed me down."

"I figured you'd call Thresh or Madge."

"I did. Thresh and Rue got here a little bit ago, and Madge and Gale want an update as soon as possible. But… It was Ban. Ban stuck with me."

"Peeta, that's incredible."

I nod slowly. "Yeah. I guess it was."

The doctor comes in a minute later. And several minutes later, with the help of a couple of nurses, I get to wheel Katniss down to the NICU so she can meet our baby girl properly.

* * *

I wish I could tell you exactly what we feel and what we say to her, but it… Well. It's shiny. And for the first time in my life, something shiny is welcome and wonderful and exactly the way it's supposed to be.

The morning after our first night home, our daughter's gurgly little cries wake me early. As quick as I can without disturbing Katniss, I pad over to the crib in the corner of our room and bend over her. My hand rests lightly against her tummy and I smile down at her.

"Did you get your O-cord all kinked up, pumpkin? Here, lemme fix it," I say. I smooth out the tiny plastic tubing, and her face gets a little less flushed. I swear she smiles at me, even though everyone tell me that babies don't smile for weeks. My baby is ahead of the curve, I'm sure of it.

"She might be hungry, Peeta," Katniss says from the bed. "Bring her over."

I scoop her up and cradle her against my chest. Little wisps of brown hair fall over her forehead, and I beam down at her for a minute before crawling back in bed and setting her down between us. As soon as Katniss pushes the strap of her tank top down and scoots closer, our daughter's lips purse and she gladly accepts Katniss's breast. I watch my girls in awe, and Katniss strokes the side of my face with the back of her hand.

"How'd you sleep?" she asks, getting herself comfortable.

"For the couple of hours I was actually asleep? Like the dead. You weren't kidding about my having night duty."

"I never kid about my own sleeping patterns, Mellark," she grins sleepily. Teasing or no, I know she didn't get that much sleep, either. I lean over the baby and tilt Katniss's face towards me and slant my lips against hers.

We get these first few quiet moments, just the three of us, before I have to head to the airport with Bannock. The plane that will take him back to Raleigh-Durham (and to Lavinia and little Ezekiel, who went home last week so we could finish getting the house ready for baby's homecoming) is making the trip here with Gale and Madge on board. Even though we want Annie, Finnick, Ezra, and the Hawthorne girls here as well, we don't want to risk exposing our daughter to too many kiddo germs before her immune system is really up to the task. And while I'm probably worrying over nothing, I'll feel much better about being back at work knowing Katniss has an extra hand or two.

It'll be bittersweet sending my brother home, but we've interrupted his life for far too long. It wasn't just that moment in the waiting room that Bannock stepped up to keep me calm; having him there when jaundice prolonged our stay in the NICU anyway, when Katniss and I couldn't agree over names, when I had my first real "What the fuck am I doing?" moment trying to get the car seat to fit properly when we brought her home yesterday - Ban saw me through every moment of it. He poked fun at me and calmed me down and reminded me that no new father actually knows what he's doing. I never noticed it before, but Ban has my father's laugh. A couple of times over the last couple of weeks, I could have sworn it was really Dad here with me. I guess if I'm our mother's son in all the wrong ways, Ban is Dad's in all the right ones. A part of me is jealous, but another part of me… Well, I'm grateful for any and every reminder I have of him, from the wedding ring on my finger to that eye-squinting, jovial laugh.

It isn't perfect. Some things are going to take months, years even for Ban to really get over when it comes to me and my addiction. Some things are always going to be locked into his memory, and no matter what I do or how I come around, they're always going to mar our relationship. It'll be a long road back even to the relationship I had with him before I hit bottom the first time. It'd be unrealistic to expect that one trip would completely mend every single fence - but I like to think that if our dad were here, he'd be proud of the two of us for trying.

We came to the mutual understanding that, when it comes to Rye, I'm letting him decide when and if he's ever ready, and Ban won't push at all on his end. Try as I might to be optimistic on that front, I just can't see Rye ever being a guest in my home and celebrating a special occasion with my family the way Ban did. Some wounds just run too deep. Maybe it's pessimism, but I tell myself I'm simply being realistic. It hurts a lot less to think that way.

I'm not exactly ready to get up and leave my girls, but my bladder is insisting upon it, and I know Katniss will be hungry herself soon. I kiss them both gingerly and try to capture the image of them in my mind. Ban's told me again and again how quickly all this goes. I don't want to miss it any of it, not like so much of my life before I got everything together enough to be here in the first place.

Something smells amazing when I step into the kitchen, and for a moment, I'm back in the house we grew up in, watching Dad pull my birthday cinnamon rolls out of the oven. My nose picks up immediately that Ban uses more nutmeg in the cinnamon mixture than Dad and I ever did, but I'm alright with that. There's even coffee brewing.

"Morning," Ban says.

"Morning. You didn't have to…"

"Nah, I wanted to. Figured it's the least I could do since I'm missing your birthday next week."

I've nearly forgotten about my birthday in all the hubbub - there's something extraordinarily kind knowing he didn't.

We make small talk while he mixes up the icing. I scramble up some eggs, and when the coffee's done, I ask him what he takes in his since I can't say that I've managed to catch onto that particular detail in the craziness of everything.

"Just a little dash of half and half is good. No sugar," he says.

"Yeah? I take it the same."

"Dad did, too."

I quirk my head at him. "No, he took it… Erm…"

"He preferred tea over coffee. But he never put sugar in either."

My stomach sinks a little, knowing that the man's been gone a decade and I'm already forgetting things about him. Or maybe this was just one more thing I never paid attention to after I decided that whiskey accompanied coffee better than anything else.

He chucks me on the shoulder with his fist to shake me out of my reverie. "Eggs are burning, Peet."

"Right, right…"

Katniss brings the baby down just a few minutes later, and it's a quiet breakfast - she and Bannock talking about the first few nights Zeke was home, and me wandering through my thoughts about my father, about being one myself, about everything. Eventually I realize I should be present and attentive, and focus my sights on the bundle in my wife's arms. Looking at her gives me a buzz that doesn't feel too unlike the first couple of sips of a really well-chilled gin and tonic. These little moments always take me by surprise, like the first time I looked at Katniss and realized just how much of a goner I was for her. I finish eating quickly so I can hold the baby and get in a few moments with her while Katniss and Ban finish eating and clean up afterwards.

It's an intoxicating moment; it's one I'm sure I'll remember forever.

* * *

There's some traffic on the way to Logan, but it's not too terrible. Since I'll be waiting for Gale and Madge to come off the plane when it arrives, I park and go in with my brother. The queue for his airline isn't long, but security will be another monster entirely. I'm cultivating a list of people at the clinic who I need to return calls to when Ban nudges my shoulder and jerks his head towards the line.

"Guess I oughta…"

"Yeah. You've got plenty of time, but just in case."

It's a bit like that moment when we picked them up all over again. I'd like to hug him, but it still feels strange to have the ability to do so. And it's stranger still that he'd actually allow it.

"You're gonna do great with her, Peeta. I'm really happy for you. And I'm… I'm really glad Zeke'll know his cousin. We gotta make sure they aren't strangers, alright?"

"They won't be. I promise." Not like we were.

"Good." Bannock's smile is firm but wide, and he grasps me by the shoulder and pulls me to him. It happens again - that strange, incredible moment of hopefulness that, even though I screw so, so much up, I didn't screw up everything. That it'll take time and patience and a lot of work, but that I can salvage this, too. Just like that first hug in this same place weeks earlier, we sink into the embrace and let it really wash over us.

"Take care, brother," he says with a smile when he pulls away, and turns to head into the security queue.

"Yeah, you too. Kiss Vi and Zeke from me."

"Will do."

When he disappears from sight, I sink down in an empty chair in the waiting area and palm my phone. I don't expect to hear from Gale and Madge for another hour, at least. Without even really thinking about it, I select Katniss's number from my contacts and hit FaceTime to place the call.

She answers with a quirk of her head. "Everything okay?" she asks curiously. I can see our daughter's head nestled on her chest and smile at her.

"Yeah. I just hoped you two would keep me company while I wait for Madge to ping me."

She smiles. "Of course we will."

Whatever work I did to get here… It's all worth it.


End file.
